Homocysteine and Cognitive Function in Depression: Meta-Analysis Results

A 2026 meta-analysis by Xiaotong Liu synthesizes findings from 13 studies involving 1,269 patients with depression. It reports a significant inverse association between homocysteine levels and cognitive scores (r = -0.41). The analysis was conducted using Stata 17.0 and includes subgroup and sensitivity analyses.

Use Cases

• Validate the association between homocysteine and cognitive impairment based on the reported correlation coefficient.
• Benchmark new clinical findings against the pooled effect size (SMD = -0.37) from this meta-analysis.
• Inform the design of prospective studies on homocysteine as a potential clinical assessment tool.
• Replicate the meta-analysis methodology using the described search strategy and quality assessment criteria.

Strengths

• Includes results from 13 studies and 1,269 patients, providing a quantitative synthesis.
• Reports specific statistical measures including correlation coefficient (r = -0.41) and standardized mean difference (SMD = 2.44).
• Methodology is clearly described, including search sources, quality assessment tools (AHRQ, GRADE), and analysis software (Stata 17.0).

Limitations

• The dataset is a single 88.6 KB DOCX file; the underlying study-level data or column definitions are not provided.
• Row count and column-level documentation are unknown, limiting direct analysis of the raw data.
• Freshness should be verified; the last update date is 2026-05-13.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Xiaotong Liu

Collection Method

Systematic review and meta-analysis of studies from PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP databases.

Time Range

Studies from inception to December 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-13 05:52:00